So busted

I’d never heard of the lady, but apparently, Alec Baldwin’s wife has been falsely claiming to be Spanish for years. She’s not; she’s a white chick from Massachusetts, which she’s now been forced to admit. It’s a silly story about a silly person, but this is delicious:

The cringiest piece of evidence is a clip from the “Today” show, in which Hilaria, speaking in a Spanish accent while cosplaying as some kind of culinary expert, says, “We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes, we have, um, how you say in Eng — cucumbers.”

I can find no, absolutely no good news these days, so I’ll settle for hilarity.

Contract reported, finally

80 Doubling Road, asking $3.5 million. 2004 construction, it started at $4.495 million in 2018, and reported a contract (when it was priced at $3.5) this past August, but that deal fell through. Now there’s another.

Whew! Here's a relief

More of the same — that's the ticket!

Joe Biden wants to provide “free” community college because “12 years of education are no longer enough”.

Over at Twitchy, the comments are not kind.

Our public schools are turning out high school “graduates” who read at a 5th-grade level, at best, and can’t add. That’s in 12 years — how would two additional years of exposure to that same system improve things?

Happy Christmas Eve to all

Or what passes for happy, these days. We’ll pray for better times.

Dave Barry survived the year — so far. He was not impressed.

Annual Year in Review: 2020 was a year of nonstop awfulness.

Politics trumps science

WHO deletes naturally acquired immunity from its website

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

The World Health Organization, for reasons unknown, has suddenly changed its definition of a core conception of immunology: herd immunity. Its discovery was one of the major achievements of 20th century science, gradually emerging in the 1920s and then becoming ever more refined throughout the 20th century. 

Herd immunity is a fascinating observation that you can trace to biological reality or statistical probability theory, whichever you prefer. (It is certainly not a “strategy” so ignore any media source that describes it that way.) Herd immunity speaks directly, and with explanatory power, to the empirical observation that respiratory viruses are either widespread and mostly mild (common cold) or very severe and short-lived (Ebola). 

Why is this? The reason is that when a virus kills its host, it cannot migrate. The more aggressively it does this, the less it spreads. If the virus doesn’t kill its host, it can hop to others through all the usual means. When you get a virus and fight it off, your immune system encodes that information in a way that builds immunity to it. When it happens to enough people (and each case is different so we can’t put a clear number on it) the virus loses its pandemic quality and becomes endemic, which is to say predictable and manageable. Each new generation incorporates that information through more exposure. 

This is what one would call Virology/Immunology 101. It’s what you read in every textbook. It’s been taught in 9th grade cell biology for probably 80 years. Observing the operations of this evolutionary phenomenon is pretty wonderful because it increases one’s respect for the way in which human biology has adapted to the presence of pathogens without absolutely freaking out. 

And the discovery of this fascinating dynamic in cell biology is a major reason why public health became so smart in the 20th century. We kept calm. We managed viruses with medical professionals: doctor/patient relationships. We avoided the Medieval tendency to run around with hair on fire but rather used rationality and intelligence. Even the New York Times recognizes that natural immunity is powerful with Covid-19, which is not in the least bit surprising. 

Until one day, this strange institution called the World Health Organization – once glorious because it was mainly responsible for the eradication of smallpox – has suddenly decided to delete everything I just wrote from cell biology basics. It has literally changed the science in a Soviet-like way. It has removed with the delete key any mention of natural immunities from its website. It has taken the additional step of actually mischaracterizing the structure and functioning of vaccines. 

So that you will believe me, I will try to be as precise as possible. Here is the website from June 9, 2020. You can see it here on Archive.org. You have to move down the page and click on the question about herd immunity. You see the following. 

That’s pretty darn accurate overall. Even the statement that the threshold is “not yet clear” is correct. There are cross immunities to Covid from other coronaviruses and there is T cell memory that contributes to natural immunity. 

Some estimates are as low as 10%, which is a far cry from the modelled 70% estimate of virus immunity that is standard within the pharmaceutical realm. Real life is vastly more complicated than models, in economics or epidemiology. The WHO’s past statement is a solid, if “pop,” description. 

However, in a screenshot dated November 13, 2020, we read the following note that somehow pretends as if human beings do not have immune systems at all but rather rely entirely on big pharma to inject things into our blood. 

What this note at the World Health Organization has done is deleted what amounts to the entire million-year history of humankind in its delicate dance with pathogens. You could only gather from this that all of us are nothing but blank and unimprovable slates on which the pharmaceutical industry writes its signature. 

In effect, this change at WHO ignores and even wipes out 100 years of medical advances in virology, immunology, and epidemiology. It is thoroughly unscientific – shilling for the vaccine industry in exactly the way the conspiracy theorists say that WHO has been doing since the beginning of this pandemic. 

What’s even more strange is the claim that a vaccine protects people from a virus rather than exposing them to it. What’s amazing about this claim is that a vaccine works precisely by firing up the immune system through exposure. Why I had to type those words is truly beyond me. This has been known for centuries. There is simply no way for medical science completely to replace the human immune system. It can only game it via what used to be called inoculation. 

Take from this what you will. It is a sign of the times. For nearly a full year, the media has been telling us that “science” requires that we comply with their dictates that run contrary to every tenet of liberalism, every expectation we’ve developed in the modern world that we can live freely and with the certainty of rights. Then “science” took over and our human rights were slammed. And now the “science” is actually deleting its own history, airbrushing over what it used to know and replacing it with something misleading at best and patently false at worst. 

I cannot say why, exactly, the WHO did this. Given the events of the past nine or ten months, however, it is reasonable to assume that politics are at play. Since the beginning of the pandemic, those who have been pushing lockdowns and hysteria over the coronavirus have resisted the idea of natural herd immunity, instead insisting that we must live in lockdown until a vaccine is developed. 

That is why the Great Barrington Declaration, written by three of the world’s preeminent epidemiologists and which advocated embracing the phenomenon of herd immunity as a way of protecting the vulnerable and minimizing harms to society, was met with such venom. Now we see the WHO, too, succumbing to political pressure. This is the only rational explanation for changing the definition of herd immunity that has existed for the past century. 

The science has not changed; only the politics have. And that is precisely why it is so dangerous and deadly to subject virus management to the forces of politics. Eventually the science too bends to the duplicitous character of the political industry. 

When the existing textbooks that students use in college contradict the latest official pronouncements from the authorities during a crisis in which the ruling class is clearly attempting to seize permanent power, we’ve got a problem. 

i’ll add this In Wuhan, where this all started, 10 million residents were tested, and cases traced, post-lockdown. Conclusion; not a single case was transmitted by asymptomatic COVID carriers. That study was was published in November; no state director of health has mentioned it, neither has St. Fauci nor, so far as I’m aware, any mainstream media mouthpiece. .

Back in June, WHO first said, then retracted after furious opposition, that transmission of the bug by asymptomatic persons was “extremely rare”. Critics insisted that there wasn’t enough evidence or experience with the novel flu to draw that conclusion, so the statement was retracted and the lockdowns continued. You’d think that a study of 10-million would at least trigger discussion, but instead, the authorities have ignored it, or kept mum.

There’s more going on here than just attempting to pro

Back to canvas parkas and hemp climbing ropes

And rope-soled canvas moccasins

North Face refuses to sell its polyester jackets to an oil services company

A growing list of companies are bowing to pressure from climate-change groups to stiff-arm the oil-and-gas industry, but as far as Adam Anderson is concerned, The North Face shouldn’t be one of them.

Mr. Anderson, CEO of Innovex Downhole Solutions in Houston, went public last week after The North Face rejected an order for 400 jackets with the Innovex logo because, as he told CBS7 in Midland, “we were an oil-and-gas services company.”

The denial came even though the vast majority of The North Face hoodies, coats, gloves, snow pants and other apparel, as well as tents and backpacks, are made with nylon, polyester and polyurethane — all of which come from petroleum. Fleece jackets are also polyester.

With the exception of gasoline stations, there may be no industry in the world more dependent on fossil fuels than outdoor recreation, and yet The North Face is hardly alone. Patagonia for years has supported anti-fracking causes despite its heavy reliance on petroleum products for its apparel.

A modern kernmantel rope has a test strength of around 4,500 lbs. Its hemp rope predecessor, maybe 500, and that’s if it wasn’t wet or frayed. If you’re falling 100 feet, you may want a stronger rope, or I would.

Stupid, ignorant morons, pulled by their noses by cynical corporate executives.

I've been pointing this out for several years now, but car experts may be more credible than just logic

Toyota CEO agrees with Elon Musk: We don’t have enough electricity to electrify all the cars

Lengthy, but worth reading, especialy for advocates of a full conversion of the nation’s (and the world’s) vefleet.

PJ Media’s Bryon Preston:

Let’s stipulate a couple of facts right at the top: Toyota makes a lot of cars, so many that it’s the world’s largest or second-largest auto manufacturer every year. Toyota makes a lot of good, reliable cars. The Corolla, for instance, may not be flashy but the little things will go for a quarter-million miles or more and they mostly just run without breaking down much. Change the oil when you’re supposed to and you’re probably good to go.

Let’s stipulate one more fact: Whether cars keep burning gas or run on electricity, Toyota is poised to make and sell millions of electric vehicles. It already has the game-changing solid-state battery coming on line. It launched the Prius way back in 1997. Toyota has not only not resisted the adaptation of EVs, it has led the way. Fundamentally, Toyota does not care if cars are powered by gas or nuclear fusion engines as long as it maintains its position and sells millions of them.

So Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda’s comments at the company’s year-end press conference deserve notice and no little amount of respect. He knows more about cars and their economic ecosystem than just about anyone else on the planet.

The Wall Street Journal was in attendance and noted the CEO’s disdain for EVs boils down to his belief they’ll ruin businesses, require massive investments, and even emit more carbon dioxide than combustion-engined vehicles. “The current business model of the car industry is going to collapse,” he said. “The more EVs we build, the worse carbon dioxide gets… When politicians are out there saying, ‘Let’s get rid of all cars using gasoline,’ do they understand this?”

CarBuzz has mischaracterized Toyoda’s comments. It’s not “disdain for EVs” he’s expressing. It’s disdain for the failure to count the cost of what politicians are proposing. More EVs will demand more electricity.

Toyoda is getting at two things. One, EVs are not powered by magical unicorn emissions, they are powered by the means we use to generate electricity. In Japan, the United States, and everywhere else, that’s fossil fuels to the tune of a huge majority of our electric power generation (61% in the U.S., with wind and solar making up about 17%, while Japan relies more heavily on nuclear power than most due to its lack of indigenous oil). Imagine taking every car in Japan or the United States and powering it not by gasoline or diesel, but by electricity. This will require a dramatic expansion of the amount of electric power we currently generate. There is no getting around this fact. We would be displacing gasoline or diesel for another power source. We’re still pulling something out of the ground and burning it in some way. The main question is where is it being burned?

How will we generate power to meet the new level of demand? Some will claim we can do it by ramping up renewables — wind and solar — but that’s not realistic. Drive out through West Texas between Llano and San Angelo out to Midland-Odessa and you’ll see a curious sight: hundreds and hundreds of towering windmills. Those are just the ones you can see from the road. There are more of them farther from the beaten paths. That part of Texas generates more wind power than the entire state of California. Wind farms cover mile after mile after mile. But all those hundreds of windmills only generate about 15% of Texas’ electricity. Wind is not economically competitive yet, so it’s subsidized by the government. Neither wind nor solar are cheap or reliable enough to displace oil and especially natural gas in our grid. The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. Oil and natural gas always burn.

Texas is just one state, but it happens to be a great one to study on this issue because it has its own power grid (no other state does) and it produces more energy than any other state within its own borders. You’d find yourself covering thousands and thousands of square miles with those windmills across West Texas just to significantly close the gap on oil and natural gas. Currently the ratio is about 4 to 1 in favor of oil and natural gas over wind and solar, and that’s just for electric power. The ratio for vehicles is much more lopsided at this point.

The second issue Toyoda is getting at is that petroleum isn’t just a fuel, it’s the foundation of thousands upon thousands of products we rely on every day. Cars alone have plastic and other petroleum-based parts throughout their systems and interiors. There is, as of yet, no reliable or economical replacement for the petroleum used to manufacture those parts. So if oil and natural gas stop coming out of the ground tomorrow, once the supply has gone through all the refining and other processes, our entire way of life takes a wallop.

If the politicians who are pushing to ban gas cars and force everyone over to EVs with renewables at their present or near-future state of development do understand any of this, they’re not letting on. They’ll wreck modern industry.

Toyoda isn’t alone in this reality check. Elon Musk recently sounded a similar note. Note well that he also has no “disdain” for EVs. He’s building his empire on EVs, and his Teslas make EVs flashy and desirable. Yet he’s sounding a similar warning to Toyoda’s.

Perhaps two of the world’s leading car experts should be listened to before Tokyo, Washington, or any other capital follows California’s lead and bans gas cars without considering the ripple effects.

I’ll add that the green’s inistence that the world’s cargo fleet also be converted, a demand that Biden has signed onto, will be equally crippling.

If an untutored person like myself could see this merely by employing logic, and car manufacturing experts recognize the impending disaster, surely people in goverment see it too, yet they’re rushing to us ahead regardless. My conviction is that their goal is to impose still more draconian limitations on individuals, the better to control us

Movin' on out

NYC Councilman begs Goldman Sachs, “please don’t leave us”.

Mind you, the rest of the City Council is determined to keep business out, killing Amazon’s proposed 25,000 - job project and redevelopment projects in Brooklyn, so this fellow’s just a voice crying in the wilderness.

From the article:

Tom Wolfe once posited that there were many CEOs “who kept their headquarters in New York long after the last rational reason for doing so had vanished . . . because of the ineffable experience of being a CEO and having lunch five days a week in [fancy expense account restaurants] in Manhattan!” So it’s no surprise that, among the myriad other reasons to flee New York, Andrew Cuomo’s war on restaurants is also helping to accelerate the business exodus.

Long term, this doesn’t bode well for Greenwich real estate: who do you think is buying all these houses?